


Lineage

by sussexbound (SamanthaLenore)



Series: The Homecoming [12]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Family Dynamics, Family Issues, Frottage, Kissing, M/M, Oral Sex, Post-Loss, reference to pet death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-05
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-16 05:24:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2257419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamanthaLenore/pseuds/sussexbound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He hates coming home, hates it.  He’s always worse here.  He always feels like the life he’s managed to build for himself counts for nothing.  He feels ten years old again, standing in this very clearing as Mycroft tells him he is going away to Cambridge, that he will have to go away to school the next year too.  He feels all the horror of it as though it was only yesterday: terrified, terrified of everything familiar falling away, changing; terrified of being abandoned, of never really being known again; terrified that whatever it is that makes him who he is, what he is, will always be deeply, horribly, irrevocably wrong; terrified that he will never find home again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this took awhile. Real life is a bit much at the moment. Forgive any SPAG errors, as well. Unfortunately, I haven't had the time to commit to editing that I normally do. I wanted to get this out, though, so here you have it--freckles and all.
> 
> This installment of "The Homecoming" series may end up containing multiple chapters. I haven't quite decided how I'm going to split it up yet. Consequently, I've slapped a Mature rating on it just in case things ramp up in later chapters, but this chapter is relatively tame.
> 
> As always, thanks for sticking with this series, taking the time to read and comment. 
> 
> You can read this installment on its own, but it will make more sense if read in the context of the larger series.

The day is perfect.  It’s warm, but not hot, breezy but not blustering.  Summer has arrived slowly, but it is in full bloom now, and the July breeze whipping through the open car window carries with it the smell of freshly mown grass, and the sweetness of wildflowers.  It’s soothing as it teases the slightly damp hair plastered to Sherlock’s forehead.  

He half doses as John drives out of London.  He’s tired, exhausted, really  He always seems to be worn out these days.  He’s been anxious about it, but John just smiles and tells him it is normal.  John is tired too.  The number of cases they take continues to dwindle, and Sherlock finds he is grateful for Mycroft’s money after all.

There is rather a lot.  More than he or John could ever use in a lifetime, and he still hasn’t decided what he will do with it all, but at least, for the time being, neither of them need consider what bills need paying when trying to decide whether or not to take a case.

There have been whole weeks where they have spent every day on ridiculously decadent lie-ins, lazy breakfasts followed by leisurely walks in the park, or sometimes even just long afternoons spent over boardgames and tea.  Sherlock knows he should be crawling out of his skin with boredom, but inexplicably he isn’t.

He is getting caught up on his reading, he has finally completed the cataloging of his books and magazines, and boxed up some of the unused items around the flat and had them sent off to the charity shop around the corner at Mrs. Hudson’s urging.  Life is slow and relatively uneventful, and for the first time in his life he is perfectly content to have it so.

“You asleep?”

Sherlock cracks an eye open and stares askance at John.  The breeze is toying with his hair, too.  He has a tan (from all their walks in the park of late, no doubt), and his hair looks lighter, his eyes bluer in contrast.  Most importantly he looks relaxed and well rested.  The dark smudges under his eyes have all but faded, the lines around his mouth and between his brows softened. 

“Um-mm.”

“Where do we turn again?”

“Left at the crossroads with the stone barn.”

“That’s right.”

Sherlock lets his eyes slide closed again.  The sun is bright and he’s forgotten his sunglasses.

“And you’re sure your parents are alright with us spending the _whole_ weekend?”

“Of course, John.  I’ve already told you.  They invited us.  You were the one who insisted we accept the invitation, so if you’re having second thoughts now, it’s a little…”

“Calm down.  I’m not saying second thoughts.  I’m just checking.”

Sherlock lets out a small huff of pique, just to let John know that stupid and unnecessary questions are still off the menu, country weekend or no.  “I am calm.  I’m perfectly calm.”

“Yeah.  Okay.”  John’s tone reads frustrated but affectionate.

The vehicle slows a little, and then John turns left.  They will be there soon.  Sherlock is not looking forward to it.  His mother will want to talk about Mycroft, and he has no desire to go there at the moment.  At least John will be there to act as buffer.  Sherlock’s never been so grateful for his presence in his life.

There is the distinct tang of horse manure as they pass the Braithwaite farm on Cobbinsend Road, and then John is slowing, pulling into the gravel of the drive, turning off the ignition.  Sherlock sighs and opens his eyes.

“You okay?”  John asks.

“As well as can be expected given current circumstances.”  Sherlock nods toward the cottage, where the front door has just been thrown wide, and his parents are bustling out, down the walk through the front garden, all smiles.  His mother’s already got her arms open like she’s fully intending on ambushing whichever of them makes the mistake of exiting the vehicle first.  

John lets out a low chuckle, removes his seatbelt and gets out.  Sure enough Mummy greets him with an enveloping hug, and clucks and coos.  John bears it with epic good humor, while Sherlock manages to slip out the other door, unseen, and start to gather the luggage from the backseat of the rental before his father comes around the vehicle and moves quietly to his side.

“How are you?”

Sherlock forces a small smile. “Fine.”

“Many cases these days?”

“No.  We’re cutting back at the moment.”

His father nods knowingly.  “Good.  Your mother worries.”

“She always worries.”

“Of course I do!”  And then he is in his mother’s arms too.  And she knows he hates it, but she does it anyway.  And she smells of white flowers, and apples, dish soap and pot roast.  “We’re just so glad the two of you have come.  We haven’t seen either of you since the funeral, and I was telling John, we were just so pleased to hear that he was back at Baker Street again.  You shouldn’t be so much alone, Sherlock!”

Sherlock manages to squirm his way out of her arms in a feigned attempt to gather up the rest of the luggage.  He grunts out a noncommittal response, and then scoops up both duffles and heads for the house without another word.

He heads to his old room and tosses both bags on the floor before flopping inelegantly onto the bed.  He can hear John’s voice drifting up from downstairs, followed by Mummy’s and every so once in a while, when he can get a word in edgewise, some murmured interjection from his father.

Sherlock sighs and stares up at the glow-in-the-dark stars still adhering to the ceiling above the bed.  He’d been interested in astronomy for 2.5 seconds around the age of 6, and then he’d promptly deleted it as pointless.  Something Mycroft had said, no doubt.  He can’t even remember what anymore.  He’d practically worshipped Mycroft and his opinions then.

Things go quiet downstairs, footsteps on the creaky old stairs, and then John is standing in the doorway.  

“We won’t both fit in that bed.”

“No.”

“Do they know?”

“Know what.”

“About us.”

“What about us?”

“Sherlock…”

Sherlock sits up and scowls.  “What?”

“Do your parents know that we’re…”

Sherlock cocks a brow.  “That we’re what?”

John sighs.  “That we’re—sharing a bed.”

Sherlock just shrugs.  “Mummy’s very perceptive about that sort of thing.”

“But you haven’t said anything?”

“Well your bag is in here isn’t it?”

“Yeah.  Okay.  Fine.  If that’s the way you want it.”

“Well what do you want me to do?  Announce that we’re regularly fellating, in the middle of dinner?”

John blinks, stares.  After a moment the corner of his mouth twitches and then he is laughing, really laughing, open and artless, like Sherlock hasn’t heard in years.  

Sherlock has no idea why what he’s said is so funny, but he smiles anyway, just at the sheer pleasure of seeing John happy, and then John is flopping down on the single bed beside him, staring up at the stars on the ceiling.  Sherlock lays back down too.  They barely fit on the mattress, but it doesn’t matter.

“Did she talk your ear off?”

“She did.”  John chuckles.  “She was telling me what you were like as a boy.”

Sherlock jerks his head to look at John, who is clearly having trouble keeping a straight face.

“What?  What did she say?!”

“She was regaling me with tales of your ‘nude’ phase.”

“I was five!”

“Five?  I seem to remember you being 35 and showing up to Buckingham Palace in only a sheet.  Suddenly everything is becoming a lot clearer…”

Sherlock tries to look indignant but fails evidently, because John is laughing again, practically giggling.  It’s ridiculous.  The whole weekend is going to be a trial.  He can already tell.

“They refused to buy me anything decent.  Scratchy wool jumpers Mummy attempted to knit when she was going through her handcrafting phase.  Horrible things.  And polyester button downs, John.  Polyester!  Can you imagine.  Have you ever had to wear polyester next to the skin?!”

“Uh yeah.  I was a product of the seventies, too, you know.”

“Practically a product of the sixties…” Sherlock mutters.

“Hey!”  John swats him, and Sherlock smiles in spite of his vexation.

“The point is, that nudity was preferable to the clothing options available at the time.  So, I simply refused to get dressed in the morning.”

“And would run off to the woods naked as the day you were born according to your mother.”

“Only in the summer, and only when I could manage it.  They watched me like a hawk.”

John suddenly rolls onto his side, wraps an arm around his waist and pulls him in close.

“What?”

“You.”

“What about me?”

“I just love you, that’s all.”

“Why?”

“I just do.”

“Why?” Sherlock insists, even though he is only too aware he’s being a nuisance.

“Because you’re you.  And what you are is brilliant.”

“Because I liked to traipse about the woods nude?”

John laughs.  “No.  Though that does paint quite the picture.  But, no. Because I can still see that boy in you sometimes.  Because I wish I’d known you then.”

“I wish you had too.”  It comes out sounding more needy than intended.

John’s eyes soften, and he leans in, presses his lips to Sherlock’s forehead for a moment before  pulling back and smiling.  “You can’t hide up here all weekend, you know.”

“Why not?”  Sherlock knows he’s bordering on a strop, but home always puts him in a mood.  John knows this.  He knew it when he insisted they accept his parents’ invitation.  So he will just have to accept it.

“Because,” John counters with what sounds very much like feigned impatience, “we are their guests, and they miss you, and they are probably missing your brother just as much as you are, and I think we should at least try to cheer them up a little.”

Sherlock sets his mouth in a straight line, and scowls at John out of the corner of his eye.  John’s being perfectly logical.  Sherlock has no ready retort.  He is consequently irked.

“Come on,” John urges, sitting up.  “Your mother’s set out a lovely cream tea, and I’m starving.”

Sherlock sits up too.  “She still acts as though Mycroft is coming.  He’s the only one who was ever interested in stuffing his face with her baking.”

John laughs, but then sobers a little when he sees the look on Sherlock’s face.  He reaches out and cards a hand through his hair.  “Humour her a little, okay.”

“Yes.  Fine.  Let’s have our tea then.”

 

* * *

 

Mummy is smiling her knowing smile.  Sherlock should be relieved, but instead he is inexplicably upset.  Why must she always just ‘know’?  Why is he never allowed to have a surprise to share?  Besides, she is fawning over John in a manner that is bordering on ridiculous. 

His father looks predictably lost.   
  
John is handling it all with the usual graciousness he reserves for female clients and the elderly, but still…

“Oh, he was such a beautiful baby.  You have no idea, John.  He looked like something from a Millais.  All those curls, eyes bright—the size of saucers, lips like a bow.”  

Mummy turns to his father. “You remember, Dear.  Remember how all the women in the village used to fawn over him, and Andrew was just besotted, and even Myc couldn’t resist his charms.”  

She turns back to Sherlock.  “Your brother was determined to hate you, but he was quite literally incapable the moment he set eyes on this adorable face.”  She reaches out in an attempt to grab at Sherlock’s cheek, but he lets out a loud, long-suffering sigh, and flops back in his chair before she can get a decent grip.

John is smiling.  He takes a sip of his tea and gazes at Sherlock over the rim of the cup.  Yes, _gaze_ is definitely the right word.  It’s soft, and slightly promising.  Sherlock is mortified to feel blood rush to his cheeks.  He supposes he should be grateful his cheeks are the only place it’s decided to go.

“Oh, I’m embarrassing you,” Mummy declares with something like mild sympathy.  “I’ll stop.  But you were such a dear little thing.”

“That’s not what you said once I started crawling,” Sherlock mutters around a bite of treacle tart.  

“Not true,” Mummy defends.  “You were always a gem.  You were just— _different_.”

“Extraordinary,” John corrects as he adds clotted cream and strawberry jam to a second scone.

“Yes,” his father adds, with a soft smile.  “He’s always been extraordinary.”  He reaches across the table and takes Mummy’s hand.  “Just like his mother.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes, and adds another teaspoon of sugar to his tea.  But John is looking down at his father’s hand, the way his fingers are meshed with Mummy’s, the way his thumb strokes the tissue-thin, freckled skin on the back of her hand, and he is smiling.  It’s thoughtful, soft, open.  It’s the kind of smile that makes something twist in Sherlock’s chest, and his lips itch to kiss John, long, and deep, and slow.

His father looks up.  “Mycroft always understood you best, I think.  He seemed to understand you in ways your mother and I never did.  Sometimes I think you were the only person your brother ever truly loved.  You two were inseparable.”

It’s wholly unexpected from his father.  He was the one person Sherlock thought he could rely on to not emotionally ambush him in such a manner, and yet the words are there, hanging in the sudden silence of the room.  There is the sincere warmth in his father’s eyes.  There is the small furrow of concern between Mummy’s eyes.  There is the pressure of John’s foot against his under the table.  And here he is, chest tight, unable to breathe, eyes hot and pricking with the threat of what will assuredly be a mortifying display in front of his parents..

He’s outside.  He’s left the garden.  He’s heading for the woods.  John’s voice is somewhere in the distance, but he doesn’t—can’t parse meaning out of the words.  He just keeps walking.  

Footsteps join his, walk—a clipped, even gate; steady in contrast with his stupid stumbling.  John’s breath, coming fast.  He has to walk twice as quickly to keep up.  John’s warmth beside him.  John’s silence.

Sherlock breaks the line of the trees, continues on with purpose, until he comes to a small clearing.  Everything is different now.  The trees have changed, the underbrush is less dense than it once was.  The forest is aging.  But the rock is still there.  It’s large enough to sit upon, but not nearly the behemoth it seemed when he was a child.  

He drops to his knees at it’s base, and starts to dig in the loamy soil.

“Sherlock?”

There is pain as the detritus of the soil drives under his fingernails, but the pain is good.  It’s oddly grounding.  His brain is going offline and at least the combination of the pain and John are here to keep his head above water.

He hates coming home, hates it.  He’s always worse here.  He always feels like the life he’s managed to build for himself counts for nothing.  He feels ten years old again, standing in this very clearing as Mycroft tells him he is going away to Cambridge, that he will have to go away to school the next year too.  He feels all the horror of it as though it was only yesterday: terrified, terrified of everything familiar falling away, changing; terrified of being abandoned, of never really being known again; terrified that whatever it is that makes him who he is, what he is, will always be deeply, horribly, irrevocably wrong; terrified that he will never find home again.

John kneels down on a bed of dead leaves beside him, and starts to dig too.  Their hands rake side by side, until Sherlock’s fingernails scrape metal.  John’s hands stop, and Sherlock’s speed up to uncover the object.

“What is that?”

The lockbox is rusted and filthy, and Sherlock lifts it from it’s hiding place with all the care a mother would give an infant.  He pulls it to his chest, and then slumps back against the great stone marker in exhaustion.

John slots into place beside him, is wise enough to sit in silence.

“Deductions,” Sherlock’s beleaguered brain decides to spew forth after a long stretch of silence.

“Sorry?”

Sherlock stares down at the box in his hands.  It’s been nearly thirty years since he’s set eyes on it.  It’s a miracle it’s still here.  The contents are quite likely destroyed, but he had been a fastidious child in many respects, and if he is remembering correctly, he had protected the contents inside zipped plastic bags.

He still remembers the combination.  It takes some effort to turn the small gears of the combination lock, but he can feel the tumblers click into place beneath his fingers.  He pops the lock, cracks open the lid.

John is leaning in to see inside.  _Always so curious._   The warmth of his arm presses up against Sherlock’s.  It should bother him, but it’s John, and somehow it’s always alright when it’s John. 

The wind whispers through the poplars overhead.  A blackbird warbles and twitters somewhere nearby.  The sun is getting lower in the sky.  It plays through the leaves, casting mottled gold-lace shadows over their bodies.

And it appears his little bags have stood the test of time, after all.  All the tiny trinkets safe, and dry, and seemingly trapped in time.

“Deductions?”  John finally says.

“A game.  Mycroft and I would play.”

“And you deduced things from this stuff?”

Sherlock nods.

John is not asking him if he is alright.  John is not asking what any of this has to do with what his father said in the kitchen.  John is just letting him lead, which is what John does, after all.  It’s what John does best, truth be told.  

Sherlock is grateful.  

He doesn’t know what brought him here.  He’d all forgotten about it until he was practically stumbling into the clearing.  But, now he’s here, now he has the small bags of knick-knacks clutched in his fingers, he’s glad, glad his uncooperative, mutinous brain is still good for something.

“Can I see?”

Sherlock hands the topmost bag wordlessly to John.  Presses it into his compact, capable palm, and lets his hand linger there, hovering over top.  He trusts John with it.  Yes, he does.  he lets go.

“Can I open it?”

Sherlock nods.

John rolls the contents around between his fingers, through the plastic, before parting the zip and reaching inside.  He pulls out a smaller bag.  It contains a few morsels of pet food.

Of course.  Of everything in the bag, he would have to choose that.

“Don’t open that,” Sherlock warns.

“What is it?  Dog food?”

“Yes.”

“What did you deduce from this?”

Sherlock swallows dryly, lets his head fall back against the warm rock behind him, his eyes slide shut.  He listens to the wind in the leaves.  “The nature of the poison that killed my dog.”

He hears John inhale sharply, a wave of tension passes through his body.   “Jesus.  How old were you?”

“Eight.”

He can hear John worrying the small packet of poisoned kibble between his fingers.  “And someone poisoned your dog?”

“Yes, John.”

John inhales quietly, holds it, let’s it go.  “I’m sorry.”

“It was over thirty years ago.”

“I know.  But, still…”

“We never found out who did it.  That’s what always bothered me the most.”

“Is that what got you interested in crime?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe.  I wanted to know why.  I wanted to understand.  Mycroft got me everything I asked for and more, at the time: books, lab equipment and the like. It was certainly when I got interested in chemistry.  

“I didn’t handle the loss well.  They had to send me away in the end.”

“What do you mean?”

“That was the first time they had me assessed.  Doctors, psychologists, the lot.”

“They sent you away?”

“For a little while.  I wouldn’t eat.  I stopped talking.  I’d always been a bit of a cold fish, or so Mummy says, but after that I would just scream if anyone tried to touch me.  They didn’t know what to do, so they let the _professionals_ have a go.”

“How long?”

Sherlock opens his eyes, and glances over at John.  He looks pale, stricken.  “What?”

“How long were you in the hospital?”

“Six weeks.”

“What happened after six weeks?”

“A diagnosis.  Pills.  Methods.”

“Christ.”  John looks like he might be ill.  “Sherlock, I—I didn’t know.  I’m sorry.”

“Why does it matter?  It makes no difference to us now.”

John looks pained, and Sherlock feels his chest tighten.  “Or does it?”

“No.  Of course not.  Of course it doesn’t, I just—I just wish I’d been there.  I wish—I wish that there had been something that I could have done.”

“You would have been twelve years old.  What could you possibly have done?”

“I don’t know, Sherlock.  Something.  Anything.”  John sounds frustrated.  His voice is dry and rough like he might cry at any moment and Sherlock doesn’t understand it at all.

“Are you upset?”

John huffs out a clipped laugh of disbelief.  “Yeah.  Of course.  Of course I am.  I hate to think that you ever had to…”  He swallows tightly.  

“We don’t have to talk about it if it upsets you.  I’m sorry.”

“It’s not about me, Sherlock.  Jesus.  You were eight years old, you’d just experienced the first real, profound loss of your life, and in a way that was shocking and violent, and then when you couldn’t cope you were sent away from everything familiar, from the only support system you knew?!  I just can’t…”

John’s breathing has sped up, grown shallow, the pallor from before has been replaced with a flush at his cheeks and down his neck, a vein throbs beneath the thin skin of his forehead.  He’s angry.  

“It’s alright.”

“It’s really not.”

“John, really.  It’s alright.  It was ages ago.”

“Why?  How could anyone…”

“They didn’t know what to do, I suppose.”

“So you came home, and then what?”

“That’s when Mycroft started getting me things to keep me occupied.  His theory was I needed to understand, and once I understood I’d be better equipped to process what had happened.  He was right, I suppose.”

“Understanding can help with some of the _why_ , I suppose.  But, it doesn’t make it stop hurting.”

“No.  But you know Mycroft: ‘ _Sentiment is weakness.  Caring is not an advantage_ ’.  He got serious about that sort of indoctrination then.  And I tried, John.  I’ve always tried.  It’s just not—it’s never been quite as easy for me as it was for him.”

“Good.”

Sherlock lifts his head, stares.

“Good,” John repeats vehemently.

“Why good?”

“It’s a part of who you are.  Why try to suppress it?”

Sherlock looks at John, at the anger, and sorrow and love mingling in his eyes.  He looks at the grey threading through his hair, at the lines around his eyes, at the way he occasionally rolls the stiffness from his shoulder in the cool of the evening.  John is tattooed all over with the evidence of suppression—years of it.  If anyone knows the cost, knows of what they speak, it’s him.

Sherlock nods.  “Fair point.  I—I think that I just got used to it.”

“To what?”

“Passing.”

“Passing?”

“As ordinary.  Or ordinary enough to get on.  That was Mummy’s goal, I think; what the doctors told her to work toward at any rate, and she tried her best.  And Mycroft—well, Mycroft accepted that we were different, each in our own way, but he could never…”  The words catch in his throat, and he has to breathe deep and even for a moment or so before he can continue.   “He could never accept differences he didn’t understand.  He could understand my brain—somewhat.  He couldn’t understand the way I felt.”

John is quiet.

“You don’t know what it’s like, John.  You’ll never know what it’s like.  No doubt you think it arrogance when I say I envy you the placidity of your mind, but I mean it.  I mean it, John!”

John’s eyes are searching his.  He is listening intently, but it is evident that he doesn’t know what to say.

Sherlock sighs.  “You walk about every day, in ordinary situations and you take for granted the ability to navigate them so effortlessly.  Everything so easy.”

“No.”

Sherlock waves his hand dismissively.  “Yes, yes.  Challenges of your own.  Fine.  Yes.  But you don’t know what it’s like, John.”

John is scowling.  A muscle in his jaw twitches.  “Then tell me.”

“I’m trying!”  _Oh.  snapping now.  Not good._

John’s scowl deepens.

“Sorry.”

John blinks.  “Yeah.  Okay.  Just—if this is too hard right now, we don’t have to…”

“It’s fine.”

“Sure?”

“Yes.”  Sherlock rakes a hand through his hair, takes a deep breath.  “It’s hard to describe.  It’s just more.”

“More?”

“More of everything.”

John shifts a little.  The sun is setting, and the ground is starting to get damp.  He shouldn’t be keeping John out like this.

“Do you want to go back to the house?”

John shakes his head.  “No.  I want you to finish.”

“It’s getting damp, and your shoulder…”

“Sherlock.  It’s fine.  Finish what you were trying to say.  More.  More of everything, you said…”

“Yes—brighter, louder, just _more_.  More intense.  Everything.”

“Sensory input, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Thought processes, quicker, more—more…”

“Yes.”

“Emotions?”

“Yes!  Everything.”

John says nothing, but his eyes search Sherlock’s in the gathering dusk.  After a moment something behind his eyes shifts.  “I know.”

“You know?”

“Yeah, of course I know.  I’ve lived with you for years.”

Sherlock doesn’t know what to say.

“What about your dad?”  John finally asks after a few minutes of silence.  “Where was he in all this?”

“What do you mean?”

“Your mom was following doctor’s orders, your brother was forging his own path and dragging you along for the ride.  What was your dad doing?”

“He was here.”

“And…”

“And what?”

“And—what did he think of everything?”

“Oh…  I don’t know.  He never said.  He always rode along in Mummy’s wake.  He’s always just sort of been— _there_.”

“There?”

“Still in the center of the storm?”

John nods.  “Is that why it threw you when he mentioned your brother?  It was unexpected from him?”

And inexplicably Sherlock can feel the tension returning to his chest.  So tight he can barely breathe.  The burn and prick of tears in his eyes.  And he’s tired, so damn tired of being ruled by these feelings, so unpredictable, so ferocious and irrepressible.  He turns his face away quickly, but not before John sees.

“It hurt, yeah?”

“Don’t,”  all he can manage.  And John grows quiet, waits.  Sherlock can hear Mummy’s voice faintly in the distance, calling them in to supper like they are wayward ten year olds.

They should get up, go in.  John must be cold.  But Sherlock can’t, not yet, and there is nothing, just the pain—the ache, the ache that never seems to stop, never, not even for a moment.  It’s less somehow, sometimes, but mostly just there, dull, hot, empty.

“What do you need?”

Sherlock blinks at the sound of John’s voice.  It’s dark now in the clearing.  “Weren’t we called in to supper?”

“That was awhile ago.”

“Oh.”

“They are probably starting to worry.  Do you think you can go back?  If you just want to go to bed I can make apologies.”

“It’s fine.  I’m hungry.”

“Me too.”

And Sherlock gets up then, brushes the dead leaves and soil from his trousers.  He reaches out a hand to help John to his feet, and the warmth of John’s hand in his is grounding.  John leans down after he stands, and collects the lockbox, the small packets of trinkets.  “Take these back to the house?”

Sherlock nods.  “Yes.”

John carries the box in one hand, as they walk back.  He holds Sherlock’s in his other, their fingers meshed together.  It seems to draw out some of the pain, some of the anxiety about facing his parents once they get back to the house, and all that is no doubt still to come in the coming days.

“John.”

“Mmm…”

“Thank-you.”

“Sure.”

“I mean it.”

“I know.  But you don’t have to thank me for loving you, you know.”

Sherlock glances down at the top of John’s head in the darkness.  The moon is rising, and John’s hair practically glows.  “And if I want to?”

John glances up, and stops dead in his tracks—silent.

Sherlock stops then, too, brows knit.  “What?”

“You should see yourself…”  John’s voice is quiet.

“What?”  

Dark bush crickets click and sing around them.  A fox cries forlornly somewhere in the dark.

John’s eyes are everywhere at once.  He looks like he might cry.  “I wish you did see.”

“See what?”  Sherlock is lost.  Completely out of his depth.

“You.  How remarkable you are.  How—how beautiful.”

Sherlock doesn’t know what to say, but he needn’t have worried, because John doesn’t seem to care about words, at the moment.  He is setting the lockbox in the grass, he is stepping forward, getting on his toes, pulling Sherlock’s head down until their foreheads touch, their breath mingles, their lips meet.

“You have always been beautiful to me,” whispered between kisses.  "You always will be.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Idiot,” John whispers, tone fond, lips trembling, as he leans down and kisses him, slow, salty-wet and deep. “I love you too,” between more kisses along his jaw, just behind his ear, down his neck to the curve of his shoulder. “Everything. You’ve always been my everything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for the long wait on this. Real life got in the way.

The sleeping arrangement is impossible, but Sherlock cannot be without the anchor John’s body provides.Not here.Not in his old room in his parent’s house.Not with his brother’s room just next door—empty—echoingly so.  

 Even here in the dark, with the weight of John’s body atop his, the deep, even cadence of his breathing wafting against his chest, even with the familiar creaks and groans of the old cottage embracing him in the blackened room, even now he can almost feel the suffocating silence, the emptiness creeping through the plaster from the room beside his.  It is hard to grasp the full weight of it—Mycroft gone.  

The house seems oddly off-balance with the permanent void his absence leaves.  There is hardly a memory Sherlock has here that does not involve his brother, and he is weary with it.  He is exhausted with the effort of trying to make some sense of it and assimilate the idea of this gap in the world where his brother used to exist.  

His head aches with it.  

His body.  

Empty.

John has tried.  John always tries.  He has been gentle, for which Sherlock is infinitely grateful.  John asks how he feels.  

Empty.

_Empty._

That is the only reply he has.

John helpfully suggests whys or tries to flesh out that simple reply and is met with only repetition.

Sherlock wonders when he might tire of asking.

Sherlock wonders if he might tire of him.

John’s breath hitches, and Sherlock lays a hand on his head.  He stills again, his breathing returning to it’s former rhythm.

_Empty._

When the tension in his chest mounts, when tears burn at the corners of his eyes, when he has no desire to eat, when sleep eludes him, when he wants desperately to stay hidden under the coverlet of the bed rather than getting up, completing the necessary daily ablutions and responsibilities he assigns himself with all the rigor of a soldier, in all those moments there is only one word— _Empty._

But, tonight…  

_John’s lips on his in the meadow between the woods and the garden.  Moon full.  Crickets clicking.  Fox cries.  The rustle of wind in grass.  The warmth of John’s hands at the back of his neck, and in his hair, and lips moving, soft, hot, moist._   

The kiss was sweet but full, the kind of kiss that stays with Sherlock, which he thinks about for days afterward because of the fireworks it sets off in his veins, the rush of electricity racing from toes to crown, derailing and then somehow resetting his brain.

John everywhere, in and around, until he cannot process which is John and which is him.  Where one of them ends and the other begins.  All because of a kiss.  

John stirs again, and then stills.  He is drooling on Sherlock’s chest now, and Sherlock wipes at it, slicks it between his fingers before sucking it off.  The taste of John’s mouth and his skin, mingling.  Perfect.

_John._

John who thinks Sherlock is beautiful, who has always thought this.  John who is so romantic, and idealistic, and confusing, and fascinating; a mystery Sherlock never tires of solving.  John who makes heroes where none exist.  John who willingly blinds himself to flaws when sentiment takes precedence.  John, without whom Sherlock knows he would not still be alive, without whom he would not have the will or motivation to live.

John twitches, gasps, jolts awake, Sherlock’s name on his lips.

Sherlock blinks.

John’s pressed up on his arms, staring down at him in the darkness.  His skin is cold.  His breath comes quick, quicker.  His arms tremble.

“It’s alright.  You were dreaming.”  Sherlock pulls him back down against his body, pulls the blankets up and over them both.

“You were falling…”  John is breathless, his voice raw.

“I’m not.  I’m here.”

“You were…”

“Not now.”

“No…”

John’s arms tighten around him.  He shudders.  Chokes out a single sob.  His damp eyelashes flutter against Sherlock’s skin.  Lips moving up to his neck.  Stubble grates against Sherlock’s chest, leaves a trail, burning evidence of John’s movements, the way he drinks, and nibbles, and tastes every inch.

There is inadequate space on this small, single mattress.  There are his parents asleep across the hall.  The box of tissue on the bedside table is empty.  Ill prepared.  But the stars on the ceiling glow pale green in the black.  John’s body lights fire under his skin.  He murmurs words, words he doesn’t understand himself, things his brain simply expels.  But, he speaks them in that low murmur against the shell of John’s ear, the one that causes shudders of pleasure to travel through John’s chest and abdomen, that causes his cheeks to flush pink and warm, and his breath to quicken.

John is fumbling out of pajama bottoms and pants, and he is pulling at Sherlock’s too.  The bed is too small, much too small.  Sherlock shifts his hips and John manages to divest him of his pants.  And John is thick and hot, hard and throbbing against him.  Eager—John is always so eager, almost desperate sometimes, and Sherlock drinks in every muffled moan, the way John’s arms tighten around him as he frots against him, builds to his peak.  

And this is the part that Sherlock loves the most—when John holds him so tight he feels owned, feels like he’s a part of John’s skin, when he is absorbingly still and alert at the same moment that John is trembling apart.

John pants Sherlock’s name against his neck, scrambles to find purchase on the mattress for his knees.The bed is too small.Exiguous.Meager.  

_Perseverating over the bed.  Stop._

Sherlock cants his hips upward and John bites off an expletive.  “Again.  Christ.  Please.  Again.”

And Sherlock gives exactly what has been asked of him.  How can he not when John’s body is slick and hot in the cold room, and his breath is gasping, desperate; whimpers and near sobs?  So close…  So close…

Everything is slick between them, John’s skin and cock weeping, and Sherlock too, he is sure.  He’s ceased to feel his body.  

John’s body—his pleasure—all the sensations coursing under his skin, his neurons firing, his blood racing, throbbing, his breath, his words, his moans, his clutching, clenching, coming, all Sherlock can take in.  And yes, there.  Yes.  

John shouts loud, loud enough to wake Mummy and his father in the next room, surely.  John is panting, languid, draped over his chest, legs tangled, cock softening between their bodies.  He isn’t yet aware enough to be embarrassed.  He will be though, once the headiness, the bliss wears off.  

Sherlock could care less what his parents hear or what they think.  But John will, John does.  John always cares what people think.  It is, Sherlock thinks, his one failing.  But John is trying.  He is trying for them.

Sherlock rests in the silence, the stillness.  The mingled huffs of their breath the only sound in the sleeping house.  He rests his hand on the small of John’s back, just at the cleft of his arse.  He calms beneath the weight of John’s body.

“Oh Christ, your parents!” in a harsh whisper.

“I’m sure they are sensible enough to ignore it and go back to sleep.”

“That’s not the point, Sherlock!”  John is fumbling about in the darkness now.  He reaches out for the box of tissue on the night stand and finds it empty, as expected.  “Shite.”  

He nearly falls out of bed, roots through his duffle in the darkness, and then starts to wipe at the mess he made with a pair of his cotton pants.  

Mummy coughs from across the hall.

“Shite,” John repeats for good measure.

He tosses the soiled pants Sherlock’s way, and they land on his chest (to clean him up as well, he supposes).  Sherlock mops at his belly and tries to fight back a smile at the site of John, flushed, and naked, and pacing agitatedly in the moonlight, stopping every so once in awhile to press his ear against the bedroom door and listen for what Sherlock can only assume are further sounds of life and wakefulness emanating from his parent’s room across the hall.

Sherlock chuckles, and John’s head whips around.  “What?”

Sherlock laughs.

John strides across the room and crawls on top of him.  “What?”

“You.”

“What about me?”

“They won’t care.  They’ll probably be pleased, truth be told.”

John scowls down at him, but the way his body melts against Sherlock’s the way the tiny quirk at the corner of his mouth contradicts the furrow between his brows let’s Sherlock know he isn’t all that upset.  “That’s not really the point.”

“Well then,” and Sherlock finally manages to tame his laughter.  He reaches up and presses a finger to John’s lower lip, relishes in the small intake of breath John makes, the way his eyelids flutter shut for just a moment before opening again, his eyes soft.  “What is the point?”  In just the timbre John’s pupils, and pulse, and heart respond to.

John sighs, settles.  “Alright.  No point.  Fine.”

“Good.”

John says nothing, but his skin is warm now, the cocoon of the blanket feels safe, right.  

Sherlock is less empty.

“I dreamt you were falling,” John mouths against Sherlock’s chest.

“Yes.  It’s been awhile.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

John shifts atop him, slides down to slot in at his side.  His arm wraps around Sherlock’s waist, his lips press against his chest.  “I know.  You don’t have to say sorry anymore, Sherlock.  I know.”

“Was it my fault?”

Sherlock can feel John’s forehead wrinkle in confusion against his skin.  

“Was what your fault?”

“The nightmare.  Because of earlier, perhaps?”

John props himself up on his elbow, stares down at Sherlock in the darkness.  “Earlier?”

“At tea, and then…”  Sherlock sighs.  “The woods, John.  The fact that I—I keep slipping away on you, that I can’t—Mycroft, gone—I just can’t…”

John shakes his head a little.  “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Never mind.”  Sherlock turns his head away, to stare across the room.  It is dark, but the moon is full and the room is silvery in a sort of artificial dawn.  He can see John’s eyes well enough.  It’s too difficult.

“No.  Sherlock, what do you mean?”

“I don’t know, John!” 

“Okay.  Okay…”  John whispers in harsh warning, jerking his chin toward the bedroom door.  “Your parents, remember.”

Sherlock just shakes his head.  He wants to roll over, curl into himself.  And that is precisely what he means.  All of this—all these emotions—wild, ungovernable, unfathomable.  A roller coaster ride he never queued up for.  A moment ago he was languid, calm, safe, and now…

John will tire of it—eventually.  He’s bound to, isn’t he?  Everyone always does, and then…  Sherlock’s brain goes blank.  He cannot even bring himself to fathom what what will happen then.  

“Sherlock?”  John’s whisper is steady again.

“You didn’t seem all that concerned about my parents a few minutes ago.”

John huffs, and Sherlock turns and looks up at him.  He’s grinning.  “Fair enough point.”

Sherlock smiles, feels a little of the tension in his chest dissipate.  

John lays back down again.  “The dreams aren’t your fault.  I’ve always had them”

“But you hadn’t been.”

“True.  But, it’s like that.  It’s always been like that.  I don’t always know why they kick up again.  Just—just promise me you’ll always be here when I wake up, and none of the rest of it matters.”

“Of course I will.  Why wouldn’t I be?”

John shrugs.  “I don’t know.  Maybe you’ll grow bored with me, or…”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Is it ridiculous?”

“Of course it is.  You know you’re everything to me, my whole world, why would I ever…?”  The words escape without thought, and the energy of the room changes immediately.  The tension that comes to John’s body, the small, almost imperceptible intake of breath.  

_Too much.  Ridiculously sentimental.  Overwrought.  Vulgar even._

John is so still.  He is barely breathing, and when he does finally take a decent breath, he shivers a little, before propping himself back up to stare down at Sherlock again. 

“Everything?”

Sherlock merely shrugs.

“Your whole world?”

“You heard me.”  

And Sherlock wants nothing more than to be up and away—anywhere but pinned beneath the weight of John’s gaze, and questions, and light pressure of his arm against his chest.

“Really?”  John’s voice is so quiet it is almost a whisper.

Sherlock looks at him then, and his breath catches in his throat.  John’s eyes are full, and he—he did this.  Somehow, in some way he has not only overstepped the bounds of social appropriateness, and any semblance of sense or self-respect, but he has also hurt John, and that is unforgivable!

“I’m sorry,” he whispers back, because he doesn’t know what else to say, doesn’t know how to make it right.

“God.  Why?”

Sherlock frowns.  “I’ve hurt you.  I’m sorry.”

“Idiot,” John whispers, tone fond, lips trembling, as he leans down and kisses him, slow, salty-wet and deep.  “I love you too,” between more kisses along his jaw, just behind his ear, down his neck to the curve of his shoulder.  “Everything.  You’ve always been my everything.”  Breaths against his sternum.

“You’re not…?”  And oxygen catches in Sherlock’s lungs as John’s tongue glides across a nipple, sending tiny heady surges of pleasure straight to his groin.

“Not what?”  John smiles against his chest.

“Hurt?  Angry?”

“Of course not.”

John’s hand, warm, dry, slides down and over Sherlock’s stomach, and wraps around his burgeoning erection.  Sherlock’s voice catches in a whimper in spite of himself.  “So it was…?”

“Mmm…  Good.  Yeah.”

_ Statement or question? _

“You’re a romantic too, you know.  You just don’t realize it.”

“Don’t be ridicu…”  But John has somehow managed to kiss his way lower, lower, and as his mouth envelops Sherlock’s length he momentarily loses the ability to speak.  “John…”  all that escapes when words finally return.

Fingers in John’s hair as John’s mouth works small miracles.  He is taking his time, drawing it out, keeping Sherlock teetering on the brink, until he begs.  Bursts of light racing the length of neural pathways as his pleasure mounts, and John hums in desire, gazes up at him from beneath the longest lashes, and the look in his eyes…  Oh, the look in his eyes.  It is the look that undoes him in the end.  

John carries him through, until he is drained and sated.  Small kisses inside his thigh, against his hip bone, up, up…  He can taste himself in John’s mouth, salty, and slightly bitter, mixed with the saline of tears.  His own tears, Sherlock suddenly realizes.  Why?  Why tears, when all he feels is calm, and safe and right, when he feels so very full?

“You okay?” John murmurs against his temple.

And Sherlock doesn’t know how to respond.  

“Thank-you,” all he finally manages.

John’s brows knit, but the corner of his mouth twitches up with the tiniest hint of curious bemusement.  “For what?”

And somehow looking John in the eye is easier now.  “For coming home with me.  For understanding at dinner, when I needed to get away.  For this.”  He inclines his head a little motioning down the length of their slick, warm bodies slotted together.  “For—for loving me, John.  For choosing me—again and again.  For staying.”

“Sherlock—“  John props himself up on one elbow, smooths the back of his fingers over Sherlock’s cheek until they come to rest against the hinge of his jaw.  “It’s always been you, whether I realized it or not, whether I acknowledged it or not, it’s always and only been you.  It always will be.”

Sherlock shakes his head, pulls his eyes away from John’s—so honest, so earnest.  “I want—I want…”

“What do you want?”  John’s fingers are in his hair.

“I want to be what you need.”

A small huff of breath escapes John’s lungs, his fingers knot slightly in Sherlock’s curls.  “You are what I need.”

“No.”

“Yes.”  John’s thumb smooths the furrows from Sherlock’s forehead.

“You need cases, you need clients, and late nights, and early mornings and things to distract you.  You need me to…”

“What if I told you that you are all the distraction I need.”

Sherlock’s chest tightens, but he smiles at the warmth and sincerity in John’s eyes in spite of himself.  “I’d tell you that you are a romantic fool.”

“Oi!”  John’s fingers tighten in his hair and give a little tug.

Sherlock chuckles.  “Yes, fine.  It’s all very nice, very sentimental yes, but—John…”  He sobers.  “You know it can’t last.”

John goes still.

“It can’t.  These last few weeks have been—they’ve been some of the best of my life, despite—despite the unremitting onslaught of emotion.  This time together, nothing but us.  It’s something I never thought I would have, John.  But, there are things—there are things still hanging over us, over this time we’ve had together.  Mary.  Gemma.  There are graves you’ve never visited.  And My—Mycroft.  I still can’t, John.  I can’t even speak his name without breaking, think of him without drowning in emotion, and it—.”

“What are you saying?”  John’s voice is tight and raw.

“I’m saying that despite your tendency to romanticize every aspect of our lives, I am not, in fact, all the distraction you need.  You need running John.  You’ve always needed it, and I’m falling, failing you.  I’m not what you need anymore.  I’m—I’m this!  Just this!”  He jabs a finger against his own chest.  “I’m not the hero you’ve made me out to be.  I’m not _Sherlock Holmes_.  I’m just…  I’m lost John.  I’m lost and—and worn down, and I’m…”  And Sherlock hates how his voice loses all it’s strength, how it breaks into nothing but a hushed whisper in the end.  “I’m terrified…”

“I know.”  John murmurs like it is nothing, like Sherlock has just told him that he prefers black socks to brown.  “I know, Sherlock.  I’ve always known.  Do you think I love the persona you’ve fought so long, and worked so hard to construct for yourself, and not the you underneath?”

The sun is coming up, the room growing lighter with the first grey fingers of dawn.  John’s eyes are dark, heavy, lidded with exhaustion and emotion.  “When I say you are enough, I mean it.  You are what I need, what I want, all of you.”

And Sherlock just shakes his head.  He’s not sure it is true, but John believes it.  That is absolute.  He can see it in his eyes.  And perhaps it doesn’t matter.  They are holding one another up, anchoring one another, staying afloat—together.  Maybe it is enough for now.

“Stop thinking,” John smiles into the kiss he presses against his lips.  “Just.”  Sherlock can feel the flutter of John’s lashes against his cheek.  “Stop.”  Feel the whisper of his breath against his jaw.  “Thinking.”

“Mmm…”

“Later.  Time for thinking, later.”  John’s tongue lathes at the salt still lingering at Sherlock’s throat.  _Insatiable._

“John…”

“No thinking.” 

“No.But…”

“Sherlock…”

“You should try to, we should both try to get some sleep.  You know…”  Sherlock’s skin still so sensitized that the rasp of John’s morning stubble burns like fire as it brushes against his neck.  He gasps.

John chuckles.  “You were saying.”

“Don’t want to get sick.”

“Making love strengthens your immune system, so stop worrying.”

Sherlock huffs, “Pseudo-science surely.”

“Nope.  Do your research.”

“Pfft.”

“And lowers your blood pressure, and risk of heart attack.  If we keep this up, then we’ll both live to be a hundred.”

Sherlock smiles, tucks his face against John’s neck.  “Then don’t stop, John.  Don’t ever stop.”

 


End file.
